ST Renewal?

They dropped to 0 points for many days in advance. I know at least 2 cup games were still selling on the day.
I don't doubt that Druss but some people just give up trying to get a ticket not knowing that some tickets are available.
It took me until this season, after trying for years, to get my first point for a home match in the Premier League, almost given up TBH.
 
Brighton and Hove Infrastructure spent a while with 4-figure gates in a dreadful alleged stadium but seem to be doing alright attendance wise in their new mahoosive ground.

Even Reading are averaging 14,500 this season and they've been garbage mostly! They used to get similar crowds to us.

Personally, I'd be happier in a few years with 10-15,000 in a 25,000 stadium than a missing generation of kids as is happening now.
Wigan are another less glamorous example. Used to be lucky to get 4000 through the turnstiles. Now even when they're struggling they are getting 12 - 14,000 in a rugby league stronghold.
 
Empty seats are important because it needs to be paid for and they affect the future income stream.

Empty seats matter less if they have been paid for. Plenty of empty seats at the Etihad and Emirates because people are prepared to buy season tickets even if they only go to 10/12 matches a season.
 
They dropped to 0 points for many days in advance. I know at least 2 cup games were still selling on the day.
But the point is that the games did sell out, cup games only start off at 2 or 3 points at the start of the season anyway. If zero pointers can and are buying tickets then that is a good thing and does not indicate that more capacity isn’t needed for league games.

Look at some of the attendances for cup games for clubs like stoke, Sheffield Utd and boro. They get much bigger gates than us in the league but some of their cup attendances are woeful.

Our cup attendances as a percentage of league attendances have always been pretty good.
 
20,000 would certainly give us room to spread out abit if/when we eventually get relegated.
Crikey, you could say that about at least 3/4 of the teams already in the championship! Maybe your planning for failure already
 
Nah, you obviously missed the bit that said 'if'. I just don't see the numbers of 'new' fans being interested IF or when we get relegated, which is a possibility for about 12 teams at the start of every season. Yes, I agree we need more seats at this moment in time but I still remember sitting at DC in a crowd of 2500 v the likes of Kidderminster. My opinion obviously differs to others but I seriously believe 1000's won't give a **************** about the club if we leave the PL.
 
Nah, you obviously missed the bit that said 'if'. I just don't see the numbers of 'new' fans being interested IF or when we get relegated, which is a possibility for about 12 teams at the start of every season. Yes, I agree we need more seats at this moment in time but I still remember sitting at DC in a crowd of 2500 v the likes of Kidderminster. My opinion obviously differs to others but I seriously believe 1000's won't give a **** about the club if we leave the PL.
Yes, we will go down one day! Thinking about it now, I can’t think of any clubs in the championship that fill their ground on a regular basis, unless we're near to the top we wouldn't with a bigger ground. We have a fairly large conurbation, with not much to the west off us. I agree, we need to build up our fan base, which we’re unable to do at the moment but I see no reason we can’t be a regular championship or premier league team and with a fan base to compete with those around us, if we had the infrastructure. Try telling this to wolves fans, I can remember them getting 4k when they were in the bottom tier and they are a club with a proud history. Maybe I’m kidding myself and maybe we’ll never know, which will be a real shame given the money we’ve got coming in now.
 
To be honest that's the nail on the head. If we don't do something now, while we are receiving these riches, it'll never happen and that would be criminal ! But to coin a phrase ' size does matter' and getting right is so important . We don't want an MK Don's or Darlington scenario
 
I don't doubt that Druss but some people just give up trying to get a ticket not knowing that some tickets are available.
It took me until this season, after trying for years, to get my first point for a home match in the Premier League, almost given up TBH.

Exactly!

There's loads of talk about growing the fan base with increased capacity ignoring that a huge number outside of our little bubble have become disinterested and alienated by the club. I promise you if (or when with our current lack of long term vision) we end up in the **************** again there will be thousands citing this period of our history when refusing to chuck money into bucket.

We also seem to forget that we don't own the ground and the rent goes up every single year.
 
They dropped to 0 points for many days in advance. I know at least 2 cup games were still selling on the day.

There were over 20,000 empty seats at the Etihad for Man City’s league cup semi final. That’s 20,000 empty seats, not 20,000 tickets sold on the day. Why do we feel this sense of needing to sell every ticket for every game? And why the bloody hell does it matter if they’re sold on the day (aside from needing to improve the ticket office)?

Throw any stat you like at it, and the fact still remains that demand outstrips supply by quite some distance. We can all talk about “what happens when we’re relegated”, but surely if we are the aim would be to get promoted again? And then we’re back in the same situation of demand vastly outstripping supply. Even if we are relegated, why does it matter if a Tuesday night cup tie at home to Grimsby only attracts 10,000 and there are another 10,000 empty seats? We’d still have a better % of tickets sold than most clubs in the country for similar games. Plus it’d give us the chance to build a fan base for the future, whilst also growing the stature of the club.

We run the very real risk right now of cutting ourselves off from the current new generation of fans. By the time I was 4 I was attending a few games a season, with my dad/grandad picking and choosing the ones I could attend. Hence I became boscombe through and through. If my only chance to see Bournemouth was on the TV alongside Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool etc then I’d have known no different and probably wanted to support one of the “best teams”. Kids need to attend in order to really become supporters. They know no different otherwise, they’ll simply want to support the best teams on the tele. It might not matter for 10 years, or maybe even 20, but then we could be in the situation where we’ve cut ourselves off from a whole generation of fans, and attendances/demand really could then suffer.

We need more capacity, be it a new ground or a temporary solution at the current one. it really is that simple.
 
Supposing we did get a 20.000 stadium, and then were relegated - of course, there would be less spontaneous demand, that's a given.

But as the advertising/marketing industry shows us every day, there are hundreds of ways of STIMULATING demand. The club doesn't have to sit there passively and hope that a few more people show up for the next game. They's have to get off their arses and do something creative to get people in, something they've forgotten over the past 5 years.

For example, for the less attractive fixtures, we could offer :

Kids For A Quid
Family For A Tenner
Free Scarf & Hat for every kid
Buy One, Get One Free (Bring A Mate, Double The Gate, remember that ?)

Then you could introduce a "frequent flier" type scheme, e.g. for every 5 games you attend, you get some kind of premium, and so on, and so on.

For me, the key thing is to grab the younger generation before they slip away. It's just a hunch, but I sense that if they haven't got the bug by the time they are, say, 12-14, they probably never will.
 
We have always be massively under supported and its down the the demograph of the area.

I would love a bigger stadium but if anyone thinks this are will support us on the way back down they are sorely mistaken.
 

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